


Ambling Madly

by madness_and_smiles



Category: Marvel Noir
Genre: M/M, i'm so sorry there are two original characters in this story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-22
Updated: 2013-05-22
Packaged: 2017-12-12 15:44:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/813257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madness_and_smiles/pseuds/madness_and_smiles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's 2010, and Steve still doesn’t have his mask, or his shield. He doesn’t read in the papers about flying women or blind men running around on rooftops. He is so far from 1944. “What happened to everyone? Why does no one pilot The Iron Man? The Spider, and The Wolverine? Where are the Banshees? Why is the world so…” Why is the world so gray, Steve wants to ask.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ambling Madly

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Christine for encouraging me on this.
> 
> Thank you to Kiran for helping spawn the idea.
> 
> I'm so sorry you guys this was incredibly self-indulgent.

April 22nd, 1944, and Steve Rogers is gripping tight to the back of a plane as the red numbers count down in front of his eyes and then there is a flash, and then there is nothing.

                The Screaming Banshees volunteer to look for the body (“to look for any survivors,” they say, because no one can believe it quite yet) but after four days when body isn’t found, Private Steve Rogers is given the status Missing in Action.

                When his mangled dog-tags are found in the belly of a fish caught off the coast of Norway three weeks later, he is declared officially deceased.

                The funeral is small and intimate, with readings by Peggy and Carol and eulogies from Bucky and Arnie and in the back of the room is Tony Stark, solemn and gray and maybe leaning on Rhodey a little too much for support.

                On May 17th, 1944, a new issue of Marvel Magazine’s  _Captain America_  is published. Production continues on for the rest of the war and the public is none the wiser.

                Steve Rogers may have gone down somewhere over the Atlantic, but Captain America lives in the pages of a comic book.

                ---

                It is June 16th, 2010, and Steve Rogers opens his eyes in a white room surrounded by unfamiliar faces. He didn’t expect that heaven would be so cold, or smell like antiseptic.

                “Mr. Rogers?”  One of them is leaning down, leaning close, and now that Steve looks at her there’s something familiar in the shape of her eyes, and the set of her jaw. “I’m glad you’re awake, my name is Ginny Rhodes.”

                Rhodes? Steve tries to think back, but his head is still too fuzzy. Does Rhodey have a sister? Maybe a niece?

                “James?”

                “Was my grandfather.” Ginny pulls back slightly when Steve tries to sit up. Grandfather? But that doesn’t make any sense. Rhodey wasn’t even married the last time Steve saw him, there’s no way he could suddenly have a twenty-year old granddaughter.

                “I don’t understand.”

                “Mr. Rogers, you’ve been asleep for a long time.”

                ---

                Everybody knows the story of the creation of Captain America. It’s burned into the collective memory, the same as Mickey Mouse’s bouncing step, or Humphrey Bogart watching a plane take off into the dead of night.

                The serum worked, and a new man stepped out of the machine.  Erskine was shot, the formula was lost, and The Captain became the first and the last super soldier to storm the battlefield. 

                He put on a mask and a striped shirt and a pair of star-spangled pants. He fought with a shield in one hand and a gun in the other. He punched Hitler in the face. He defeated the Red Skull. He kept the world safe.

                What people don’t know is that before he was Captain America, he was Steve Rogers. People don’t know that he never stopped being Steve Rogers, throughout all of the horror that he saw. It’s hard to capture the smell of death and the grit of dirt and blood in a four color panel. It’s even harder to capture the man behind a symbol.

                It was all classified information anyways. 

\---

                Three days after Steve wakes up, Ginny and her brother Michael are allowed to drive Steve to their house. They say he’s going home, but that word doesn’t fit anywhere in this world.  

                Ginny is sweet, open, calm. She has a lot of Rhodey about her. Michael is quiet, subdued, but Steve sees him watching in the same way that Rhodey used to watch. He’s ready to catch someone if they fall.

                The thing is, they’re not just Rhodey’s grandkids, but Bucky’s too, and Steve can see it in the way Ginny smiles and floors it once they’re on the highway (a highway that never existed seventy years ago).

                “Dad was Grandpa James’s youngest, and Mom was Granddad Bucky’s oldest. Grandpa and Granddad were always working at the Institute together, so I guess falling in love just came naturally.” Ginny rolls her eyes, “we’ve heard like a million different stories of them growing up together.”

                “The Institute? You mean Marvel Magazine?” Steve can’t imagine Rhodey or Bucky having anything to do with the magazine, especially since Rhodey had once told him that he planned to quit before the war started.

                 “After the war, Uncle Tony expanded Marvel Magazine into The Stark Institute, heading up several new R&D departments. Grandpa and Granddad both had jobs there.” Michael offers, and then he reaches over to turn on what Steve assumes is a wireless radio built into the car. “How about some music?”

                “What about Tony? Where are his kids?” Steve asks, and he sees the look Michael and Ginny exchange in the rear-view mirror.

                “Uncle Tony never married. He always said that he was still searching for the right person.”

                The answer hits Steve like a punch to the gut, and he is quiet after that. There are a million questions he wants to ask, about Peggy and Carol and the Banshees and did Pepper ever win her Pulitzer and what does it mean to live in a world where the war has been won?

                But he doesn’t ask any of that.

                “What type of music is this? I like it.”

                “It’s rock and roll – The Beatles. They were a band from the 60’s… I guess you kind of missed that.”

                Steve has missed a lot of things.

\---

                The first time Steve Rogers meets Tony Stark they are at a bar in London in March of ’42, and Steve won’t know that the man trying to buy him a drink is Tony Stark until the next morning, where they’ll meet for a briefing on their first mission together and despite the drunken, hazy atmosphere of the night before, Stark will recognize Steve in about five seconds.

               “Not a lot of blond men with your build running around London right now. You know, you really ought to get a mask. Though even that wouldn’t hide those big baby blues. Jeepers creepers, kid.”

                But right now Steve doesn’t know that this man is Tony Stark, he only that he has bright eyes and a roguish smile and he is interested in Steve in a way that no one was before.

                Then the man mentions something about being “off-duty”, and Steve remembers that he is never off-duty, and he grabs his hat and leaves.

                ---

                The next morning, after learning about parachuting into France and the signals to be used to contact the French Resistance, they talk about putting Captain America into Marvels Magazine.

                “It’s part of my deal with the good General,” Tony says as the woman who introduced herself as Pepper Potts jots down some notes. “The Iron Man gets to tag along as a military contractor on classified missions as long as we give the great Captain America some free press. You get to be a legend, and I get to fight the Nazis without selling my soul to the military. No offense.” He does another once over of Steve’s military dress and frowns. “Now it’s time to talk about a uniform.”

                “Uniform?” 

                “You’re going to be  _Captain America_. You’re going to be a symbol, and as such you’re going to need even less subtlety than Ahab’s white whale.”

                “I may have…” Steve blushes, because he certainly hadn’t planned on showing this to  _anyone._  “I may have some designs ready.”

                Tony raises his eyebrows, curious and inviting, and Steve digs through his pack and comes out with some crumpled designs of a super hero costume. Red and white stripes across the chest, blue star spangled pants. A red mask, tied back in a knot. His shield placed firmly in his hands.

                “The old stars and stripes huh?” Tony smiles at Pepper, and she smiles back.

                “This could work,” Pepper nods.

                 _Marvels Magazine Presents: The Adventures of Captain America!! Smashing through, he comes face to face with Hitler!_

\---

                Steve’s first mission with Iron Man and War Machine starts with the three of them going separate ways, after they argue for twenty minutes about what to do when the Resistance is unavoidably detained. It ends with the three of them liberating a small village in France. They’re given a loaf of bread and three eggs for their troubles – all the village can spare – and then Stark breaks the bread in half and gives it back to them.

                “We all earned this victory together,” he says.

                “You asked me earlier why I stick with Chief over here?” Rhodey smiles and tilts his head, “there are plenty of good reasons.”

                “I misjudged him.” Steve allows, and Rhodey laughs, but it’s kind. Steve remembers why he liked Rhodey from the moment they met.

                “Don’t worry. He does a lot of that himself. I’m glad to finally see it happen the other way around.”

                ---

                After that first mission, after the awkwardness of trying to move around each other without running into each other, Steve and Tony get along like a house on fire. They argue over strategy and they bond over art and music. Steve admits that he’s read every issue of  _Marvels_  and they talk about finding buried treasure and lost cities.

                “I wonder sometimes, if this war is going to destroy all of the wonder in the world.” Tony says, and when Steve asks him how that could be possible he just shrugs. “I just have an intuition about these things.”

                “The war won’t take everything from us,” Steve looks at the shield resting in his hands and bites back a sigh. “It will end, and good will triumph, and this hell will finally be over.” He looks up to see that Tony is watching him, his face intense and searching.

                “What will you do then, Mr. Soldier?”

                The truth is that Steve doesn’t know.

                ---

                Three weeks into the twenty-first century and Steve is beginning to grow restless. He looks out the window and sees sunshine and brownstone buildings and despite art classes and a new job Steve is bored to tears.

                “Something up, Steve?”

                It’s Michael, hovering nearby like he tends to do.

                “It’s just… I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to be doing here.” Steve still doesn’t have his mask, or his shield. He doesn’t read in the papers about flying women or blind men running around on rooftops. “What happened to everyone? Why does no one pilot The Iron Man? What happened to The Spider, and The Wolverine? Where are the Banshees? Why is the world so…”

                Why is the world so gray, Steve wants to ask.

                Michael has the decency to look embarrassed when he explains.

                “None of that stuff…. That isn’t how the world works anymore. There are anti-vigilante regulations, and lawsuits, and a generally effective police force. People like The Spider just faded away… that is, if they were even real in the first place.”

                “I met him,” Steve’s voice is quiet, and he can tell that Michael doesn’t believe him. Michael doesn’t believe in a lot of things. “His name was Peter Parker. He was… strongly attached to his ideology, to say the least.”

                “Right, well… to most people those are just stories. Captain America didn’t die in 1945, how could he? He was just a story in a comic book. Just a symbol for people to rally behind. He wasn’t real.”

                “And yet I’m right here.”

\---

                They don’t always fight together, and they don’t always fight alone. Rhodey is with them more often than not, and once Bucky joins up it’s always at least a trio. But sometimes there are more of them. Sometimes they’re a team.

                They fight alongside Carol Danvers and her Screaming Banshees, who put every male soldier Steve has ever met to shame. The rain never stops falling and there is so much mud that Steve thinks he might drown but then Carol grips his hand tight and they are suddenly flying and holy cow it is a woman who can  _fly_ and, apparently, zap planes right out of the sky.

                Tony brings Steve to a man named who only goes by the Wolverine. He says he joined the army because it was the last place left for a man like him, and Steve doesn’t understand what that means until he sees the Wolverine in battle. For all he has seen, he has trouble sleeping that night.

                They meet The Spider twice, and the first time was an accident. The Daily Bugle had sent over their best reporter to do one of those “accounts from the front” stories. Tony said he never would’ve believed that that milksop Parker was a vigilante, but then they’re suddenly under heavy fire and there is no mistaking the way the photographer moves.

                “Why don’t you stay here, and help fight?” Steve asks, and Peter looks him dead in the eye when he answers.

                “I don’t want to live in a world where people kill each other like animals… and besides,” Peter looks off to the side, to some distant place that Steve can’t quite see. He looks to home. “I’m already fighting a different kind of war.”

                The second time they meet up with The Spider again, it turns out the feds finally caught up with him, and this mission is his penance.

                “I just gotta listen to what this guy Fury says, and then I can go home, to where I’m really needed.”

                It’s a mission called The Avengers Initiative, which is so ridiculous that Tony must have named it. It’s Captain America, Iron Man, War Machine, The Spider, The Wolverine, the Screaming Banshees, and a spy Steve has never met before with the codename of Black Widow. Tony laughs when he sees them all gathered together.

                “Well,” he says, “sales are definitely going up next month. Never had a crossover so big before.”

                War time is not fun. Missions are not games. It is brutal and horrifying and mankind at its worse. But being on a team together like that, for two weeks and in close quarters… it was nice. They were a team. They were even a family for a little while.

\---

                Ginny finds Steve the day after his talk with Michael. She’s holding a box in her hands, and she drops it on his bed unceremoniously before plopping down on the floor next to him.

                “You know, Uncle Tony used to read to me all of his old  _Tony Stark & Captain America_ comics.”

                “Oh, the old ones from the war?”           

                “Well, some. But he and Aunt Pepper kept writing them, you know?”

                Steve didn’t know. How could he know?

                “I had no idea.”

                 “Yeah,” Ginny nods and starts pulling things out of the box. It’s filled with comics, tons of comics. “Even after the war, Uncle Tony wouldn’t let the characters die. Captain America and Iron Man went on, well, probably hundreds of adventures together. They stopped circulation a few years before I was born, around the time Grandpa finally convinced Uncle Tony to give up the adventuring for a while.”

            “Why don’t you take the armor for a spin?”

            “In my dreams,” Ginny smiles ruefully. “Uncle Tony always promised that one day he’d put a new suit together for me, but my mom and Grandpa probably would’ve killed him if he did.”

                Steve glances at the covers.  _Tony Stark & Captain America and the swiping Silver Claw of South America! Tony Stark & Captain America and the hidden city of K’un L’un!_They’re…. they’re surreal. They’re adventures he and Tony never had. Could’ve had. Would never have.

                Then Ginny pulls something different out of the box. It’s a child’s artwork, messily stapled and crudely resembling a comic.

                “My favorite stories though were the ones he made up for me on the spot.  _Uncle Tony and Uncle Steve and Ginny the_ _Iron Lass_ _!_ You know, that sort of thing. Sometimes I drew them for him.” Ginny isn’t embarrassed like Steve would’ve been at her age. She just looks fond, and a little sad. Like she misses him.

                “He called me Uncle Steve?”

                “Yeah. They all did. Granddad and Grandpa and Uncle Tony and Aunties Peggy and Pepper…. I think they wanted to pretend that you were still here with us. I know…. I know we don’t have superheroes anymore, but life isn’t so bad. The world is still out there.”

                There’s nothing Steve can really say to that, so the two of them sit quietly and read over Tony and Pepper’s old stories until there’s a soft knock at the door. It’s Sam Wilson, the boy Ginny’s been going steady with. Or whatever it is kids call it these days.

                “Hello Mr. Rogers, nice to see you again.” Steve likes Sam. He’s polite, well spoken. He works part-time in the child psychology department of the Institution while studying at Empire State. Steve doesn’t even mind that he and Ginny don’t come home most nights, although privately he wonders if he shouldn’t give the two of them some sort of private fatherly talking to. He’s sure Tony would’ve made a joke out of it.

                “Sam, always a pleasure.”

                “You ready to go, Gin?”

                Ginny pushes herself off the floor and gives Sam a kiss on the cheek, then wiggles her fingers in a goodbye to Steve.

                “Don’t wait up, okay Uncle Steve?”

                Steve doesn’t wait up for Ginny, but he doesn’t get any sleep either. He spends all night pouring over the adventures of Tony Stark and Captain America. He folds the words around in his head and imagines himself onto the page. It’s a good enough dream to fall asleep to.

\---

                Steve tries to track down the people he knew.

                He looks for Peter Parker and finds that he died as the owner of the Daily Bugle, which is now run by his daughter May, while his son Ben is a public defense attorney.

                Peggy’s family is alive and well in England, but Steve knew that her status had never been declassified, so he can’t call them.

                Carol is the easiest to find, since she was the first woman in space. She went all the way to the moon in 1956, and she did it on the Stark Institute’s dime. Her name is plastered across the history books and worshipped by aspiring pilots everywhere.

                Steve is a man that should’ve died seventy years ago, so there’s not much he can do in the way of contact, but every little bit helps.

\---

                Steve learns about Tony’s condition after watching Rhodey literally connect Tony to a car engine in order to jumpstart his heart and he almost throws his shield through the other man’s skull.

                “How could you be so  _stupid_?” he yells. “You could’ve been killed! You could’ve gotten us all killed!”

                “Believe it or not,” Rhodey interrupts, “he’s actually been better about it recently. I think this was just an accident, wasn’t it Chief?”

                “Definitely an ac-accident.” Tony is shuddering as his heart roars back to life, “I don’t exactly enjoy being jump-started like a cheap automobile.” Tony Stark wears his defiance so casually you might think it was a necktie, or a watch. Steve looks at him and the look on his face is all too familiar after seeing it in the mirror every morning of his life.

                “Just… make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

\---

                The first time Tony kisses Steve, it’s after they narrowly escape being blown to bits in an abandoned warehouse somewhere in the German countryside, and it’s not really a kiss so much as a rush of emotions and a clacking of teeth and chapped lips.

                 _You’re here you’re alive you’re okay I’m okay we’re okay we’re alive I thought you were gone I thought we were gone I thought the war was…_

                They don’t talk about it afterwards. Steve thinks Tony is avoiding it and Tony thinks Steve is avoiding it and Bucky grumbles about “stupid fucking Stark feelings” and Rhodey rolls his eyes and pinches Tony’s nose.

                Tony breaks first.

                “So, Sport, I think we should talk about the other day, back in Germany.”

                “You kissed me.” Steve is guarded, because he can’t not be.

                “As I seem to recall,  _you_  were the one who kissed  _me_. But that’s neither here nor there, because what I’m trying to say is that we should do more of it. And other things as well, if you’re up for it.” Tony punctuates it with a wink and Steve’s ears definitely do  _not_  go pink.

                “Are you making a pass at me, Mr. Stark?” Now that he can let his shield down, Steve’s tone is light and teasing. He knows where they’re heading with this and he’s happy about it. Really, truly, honestly happy.

                “Steve, when we first met it was because I was trying to buy you a drink. I told you that you had ‘big baby blues’.  I don’t just use that one on every girl with great gams. Or every man, for that matter.”

                “That’s not what Rhodey and Pepper told me…”

                “Oh, shut up.”

                The second time that Tony kisses Steve, it is a good and proper kiss. It starts off slow, just a press of the lips and a hand cupped delicately around Steve’s jaw and Steve isn’t prepared for the brush of Tony’s mustache or the smell of his cologne.

                 It feels like electricity, and the jolt of it sends a feeling right down to the pit of Steve’s stomach and soon he’s grabbing fistfuls of Tony’s shirt and doing his best to kiss the other man breathless. To Steve’s credit, it works.

                “Now that,” Tony pants as they break apart for a moment, “is what I call the American Dream.”

\---

               In war there is never enough time, but somehow Steve and Tony manage to pool together what little they do have.

                They never go off mission, of course. They never play it fast and loose near the front, because that would be absurd and dangerous and above all irresponsible.

                 But there are times alone in dark alleys and empty apartments. There are quick sleepy kisses in the morning and quick apologetic ones right before one of them does something stupid.

                Tony somehow coaxes Steve into two weeks of leave in the English countryside and they spend the days in the rare English sun and the nights curled up together on an old oak bed where Tony whispers “it’s okay, you can make noise. No one can hear us in these parts. We’re alone. We can pretend that there is no war.” before lightly scraping his teeth down Steve’s neck and biting softly on the sensitive spot on Steve’s right where his neck meets his shoulder and it’s like Steve's voice is suddenly ripped out of him.

                He shouts Tony’s name that night until he can’t and it’s just wordless noise pouring from his mouth and Steve would actually be jealous of the fact that Tony can still string two sentences together if he wasn’t occupied with a lot of other feelings at that moment.

                They fight the next morning for three hours. They fight because Tony said to imagine that there wasn’t a war, which turns into a fight about soldiers and contracts, which turns into a fight about what Steve is going to do once the war finishes, which ends with Steve screaming “ _I don’t know!”_ which isn’t the answer Tony wants to hear so he clicks his teeth together and drives away.

                After hours of waiting Steve really thinks he might be stranded in the English countryside. He thinks that until the middle of the night when Tony walks in smelling like cheap booze and cards his fingers through Steve’s hair.

                “We could travel the world together, you and me. Rhodey wants to settle down. That’s all right. I understand. But you and I... we could see marvels that you couldn’t even imagine. We could write our stories together until the sun dies and mountains rise from the sea. The war will be over, but Captain America and Iron Man don’t have to be. Can’t you see that? Adventure is still out there.”

                Steve surprises Tony when he sits up and kisses the inside of Tony’s wrist. They lay on the mattress and tumbled to sleep, clinging desperately to each other until the morning. It’s not an answer, Steve knows, but it’s something.

\---

                “Is that the latest draft of Marvels?”

                “Yeah, Pepper sent it over for a final review.”

                “…Tony, it can’t end with you and Captain America kissing and riding off into the sunset.”

                “That’s why this version is for my viewing pleasure only. Though if you’re willing to wait here another thirty minutes, we can bring the last panel to life ourselves.”

                “…I think I’m free around that time.”

\---

                The last time Steve sees Tony Stark (but there’s no way he could know it’s the last time he will see Tony) is right before they split up – Tony and Rhodey to chase Zemo, and Steve and Bucky to chase the Red Skull. They’re in an abandoned castle, there’s hardly enough time to save the world as it is, but Tony still manages to lift his face mask and curl an arm around Steve’s shoulder.

                “One quick kiss, for the road.”

                Steve is cut off by the press of Tony’s lips before he can even begin to argue, and he closes his eyes for a count of one before pushing off of the metal suit and throwing a salute Tony’s way.

                “See you when this is all over.”

                When you are at war, every kiss is a goodbye. Every farewell is your last. Every moment counts. Steve tells himself this, but somewhere in the back of his mind he doesn’t really believe it. He and Tony have plans, they have a life waiting for them. He doesn’t believe that they can die here.

                Not until he’s holding fast to an airplane and watching his life count down in front of him.

                He wishes he had said ‘I love you’.

\---

                It’s 2011 and Steve dreams that he was never trapped in the ice. He dreams that every issue of Tony Stark & Captain America was real. He dreams of four color panels where he kisses Tony for everything he’s worth and the sunset behind them has nothing on the blue of Tony’s eyes or the brightness of his smile.

                It’s 2011 and Steve wakes up and realizes he has finally made a decision to a question that was asked decades ago.

                He puts a pack together first. Then books airline tickets and a guides. Then does a thousand other little nit-picky things that he knows Tony never had to deal with back in their day.

                After a month of secret phone calls, strange meetings, and a growing number of hiking supply bills, Ginny doesn’t exactly seem surprise when Steve asks to talk. She is, however, slightly caught off-guard by his question.           

                “You said the world is still out there, so I’m going to find it. It’s what your Uncle Tony and I would’ve done together anyways, and I’m tired of just being an old story. I think it’s time to write something new again. My only question is if you want to join me. Before you ask, the answer is yes. You can bring Sam.”

                “I’ll need some time to pack.”

\---

                 _Marvel Magazine Presents: The Return of Captain America! With his new partners:_ _Iron_ _Woman and The Falcon! Will the team discover the mysteries of the lost world of Asgard? Turn the page to find out!_

_(a true story)_

                

 


End file.
